Five Minutes
by DancingPhalangess
Summary: Fourteen years after her first meeting with the Doctor, Amelia Pond is about to be married. So where is the man who promised her five minutes? One-shot.


**I have an urge to write a Doctor Who one shot. I have no idea what it's going to be about. Let's write and see what my imagination wants. **

Amelia Pond walked slowly towards the fate that awaited her, dreading the outcome. Dreading her future. As she walked, she thought of all the things that had lead up to this moment, the trail of mistakes and broken promises and false pretences that had gotten her into that very moment.

Five minutes. That's what he said. Even when she had jutted out her bottom lip and moaned that 'that's what grown ups always say', he had still promised her five minutes. Twelve years and four psychiatrists later, she had met her Doctor again. So much for promises.

Even then, he hadn't stayed with her, he hadn't asked her to come along. Even after she had helped him to save the world, he had ran back into his box and vanished without even a goodbye. What he hadn't betted on was that he was leaving behind a woman who needed him to save her. Amy needed him to pull her away from the life she was falling into, the person she was destined to become. But he hadn't. He had left again, and now, two years on and not a word. He hadn't came for her as he had promised he would when she was just seven years' old. No one ever did. They all said five minutes, her parents had, and they never came home. Her aunt always told her five minutes, and sometimes Amy was alone for days on end. Young and terrified of the growing crack in her wall. No one was ever five minutes, and now, Amy was paying the price.

Rory was not a bad man. He was sweet and funny, he had always been good to her. He had proposed very sweetly, down on one knee in the middle of the village fête, and Amy, who had long since stopped hoping for her Doctor to save her, had seen no other choice than to accept. So she said the one word that would change her life forever as the whole village looked on and applauded. Rory had promised her a lifetime of security and love, so why, by saying yes, had Amy felt as if she was condemning herself to a life sentence?

The more she told herself that it was what she wanted, the less she believed it. What she really wanted was the man in the blue box that had fallen from the sky. The man who had sat in her kitchen eating fish custard and had fixed the scary crack in her wall. The man who said he would be five minutes. Because although Amy had stopped hoping, she had never given up on him. He would come for her one day, just several years too late. She had never dared to truly believe that this time, he just might be on time, but she had never stopped thinking it. Late at night with Rory was asleep, she would think of the man who had been in her life for such a short time, but had already made more of a difference to it than her fiancé ever could. Then she would fall asleep and drift into a world of flying blue boxes and fish custard eating madmen.

Now though, she had to give up on those dreams, she had to let go of that hope, because this was her wedding day, and she was walking down the aisle to her awaiting finance, soon to be husband, and a horde of wedding guests whom Amy hadn't been able to stop. Amelia Pond. That wouldn't be her name much longer. Soon, she wouldn't be the person who had sat in her kitchen with someone who had fallen from the sky and had complimented her name, saying it was like 'a fairytale'. Only her fairytale was ending now, and only reality remained.

Although Amy tried to make the journey to her fate last as long as possible, she got there eventually. Too soon for her liking and stood ready to pledge herself to a man that she did not love. Not enough anyway. There was nothing she could do now. She had no other choice. Amelia Pond was soon to be no more, that girl would fade into the past, along with her hope and dreams, along with her memories and her Doctor.

Faintly, Amy could hear the vicar talking, beginning the service, but she wasn't paying attention. She was using every moment she still had left as Amelia Pond to think about her Doctor, because as soon as she was married, she would be able to think of him no longer. She would have to think of Rory, her husband. At least with him, she knew where she stood. When Rory said five minutes, he was five minutes. He didn't leave her hanging for fourteen years. But as much as she tried to tell herself that Rory was a better man for her, there was no way she could convince herself of it. It just wasn't true. He wasn't the one for her, and he never would be. All Amy could do was make the best of what she had. But it would never be enough.

The vicar stopped talking, and Rory began. The vows. They had started on the vows. In just a few minutes, she would be married, and then it would be too late forever. In just a few minutes, she would be a different woman. A married one. A lot could happen in five minutes. Rory stopped, and all heads turned to her. To Amy. She was meant to speak now. She was meant to voice the vows she had been made to write herself. But no matter how much time she had spent bent over a piece of paper, pen in hand, she couldn't think of the right words. So to come up with what she thought would satisfy the congregation gathered at the church, she had thought of her Doctor, and what she would say to him.

"Fourteen years ago, I was a little girl afraid of the crack in her wall. I saw the man in the blue box as my way out, my way to escape. I dreamed of him every day, and I never stopped hoping he would come for me. Two years ago, I thought that time had come. He came back, but just as he had broken his promise of five minutes twelve years ago, he broke his promise of forever. So I accepted the next best thing. I accepted this. But I never stopped thinking of the blue box and the fish custard eating man who came out of it."

Amy could hear murmurings around her as she spoke her 'vows' this was not what she had intended to say, she hadn't thought she would ever get this far, if she was being totally honest with herself. She thought her Doctor would have came for her by now. That's why she said yes to Rory, and that's why she had never written and proper vows, never thought of herself as engaged, because to her, she never had been. She had just been waiting. But not time was up. The waiting had ran its course, and she was being forced to pay the price for the life she had accepted.

"To this day, to this very moment I never forgot the man in the phone box, but now I must. I can't think of him any longer, because that's not the life I can have," Amy paused and swallowed, wondering if she dared finish her speech. She looked around at all the people who had turned up to see her wed, neighbours, friends, and to her surprise, her aunt. Rory's family, Rory's best friends and even his ex-girlfriends. All of them had came to see the moment that would tie them together forever. She wished she could give them what they wanted. But she couldn't. She couldn't do it to herself or them. She couldn't lie any longer. Amy took a deep breath, trying to compose herself to a confused Rory and gather the courage to finish what she had started.

"But neither is this," she said, her voice shaking, but loudly enough for everyone in the church to hear it, and a collective gasp rang though the walls at her words. Her final vows. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have let things get this far, but if I don't say it now, I never will, and I can't let myself fall into a life of content. I want to be happy, I want to see the world. If I say 'I do' I never will, I'll never get out of this village. I will be trapped in a fake marriage. Something based on a lie."

All through her speech, Amy didn't look at her now ex-fiancé. She couldn't. She couldn't bare to watch his heart break and know that she was responsible. Hurting such a sweet, honest man had never been part of the plan. The Doctor had been the plan, but he had never showed, so it had to be re-thought, re-arranged, by which point it was too late not to hurt Rory.

Amy's dreams had always seemed so real to her, she could remember everything that the Doctor had ever said to her, every feature he had, and each detail of the TARDIS. She remembered the noise it made as it appeared and disappeared, and sometimes, when it was silent, her imagination carried her so far, that she would become convinced that she could indeed hear the sound of the TARDIS coming for her. Even now, with the shocked mumbles of the wedding guests, and a stunned Rory, able to do nothing but stare at the woman he wanted nothing more than to marry right there, right then in that very spot, she could hear her saviour arriving. But she had dreamed enough to know it was only that. A dream. A dream that could never be a reality.

Still, the sound seemed so close, so real, that for a moment, Amy closed her eyes and lost herself in the moment, and when she opened them again, she knew she had gone too far. The TARDIS was there, right in the middle of the aisle with gaping onlookers staring so that their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Amy only looked sadly. It seemed that she had finally gone mad. She had dreamed of her Doctor so much, that she had sent herself crazy with her visions. Her mind no longer knew what was reality. But the guests were starting to gasp and cry out, and the long awaited for blue box wasn't fading away. Before she even had time to think, the door swung open, and out walked her Doctor, whistling and swinging his TARDIS key around his finger in a loop the loop. His face split into a huge grin when he saw her.

"Amelia Pond," he shouted, excitedly. "Long time no see, I guess I did it again. Said five minutes didn't I? Not to worry I'm here now," he stopped talking and looked around him, seeming to only just realise it that moment where they were, and what was going on. "Oh," he said, more quietly, less exited. "I see you won't be Amelia Pond much longer. Shame I liked that name, it was like-"

"Like a fairytale," Amy interrupted, her voice no more than a whisper. But the Doctor heard it, as she knew he would. His grin came back, larger than ever.

Without thinking about what she was doing, or another moment's hesitation, Amy lifted her skirt and ran forwards, her own grin spreading across her face. He may not have been five minutes, but at the end of it all, it didn't matter. He was fourteen years' late, but he had came at just the right time.

**The Woman in Black is with you, and if you don't review, she will eat you. If you have never seen 'The Woman in Black' that will have absolutely no effect on you, but review anyway?**


End file.
